


Sastiel Headcanons for Sastiel Love Week

by kisahawklin



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awesome Jody Mills, Baby Animals, Bathing/Washing, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, POV Outsider, Sastiel Love Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 03:03:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10376427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kisahawklin/pseuds/kisahawklin
Summary: Seven Sastiel headcanons; some more headcanon-y, some more ficcish, for my lovely Sastiel person,@anchoirswhose requests read like a list of my favorite things: schmoop, friends to lovers, a fair amount of Dean, but no competition from him, awkward sex (sorry, none of that in here, though), and then one specific prompt - washing the blood off each other. And man, it was peeeeerfect. A match made in heaven. It's been a great week.





	1. First Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misbehavin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misbehavin/gifts).



> So... I did a thing with these, where I wrote them (on purpose) with a sort of loose POV, that shifted from Sam to Cas and sometimes back again. Headcanons just seemed like the place to give that a try, you know? I really like how it worked out, too. And ha, of course on the stupidly long AU one, of course I didn't change POV because that's really more like a fic than a headcanon anyway, but... I just wanted to say. If you thought I was headhopping, you were right. And I did it on purpose. And I kinda liked it? I feel like it works, here, but POV is a thing I've been thinking about a lot lately, and I have one WIP in the works where I thought I might try something with it. We'll see, you know how these things are, but. Just. FYI, or whatever. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi hi hi my lovely Sastiel person! I hope this will get your week off to a good start!

I can cook up about a million first times. The first time Sam leans into Cas's strong hand on his shoulder. The first time Cas looks at Sam and sees something more than Dean's brother. The first time Dean realizes his little brother might have a thing for the angel. The first time they get kicked out of a gay bar, the first time they have angry sex, the first time they wake up curled toward each other, Sam's eyes fluttering open because Cas tucks a stray piece of hair behind his ear. But the first time I want to tell you about, my lovely Sastiel sweetheart, is the first time Sam asks Cas for help.

Now, he's asked Cas for help in canon a few times, sure, but that was always for someone else. For Dean, for the greater good, but never for Sam. It's okay to ask for help for someone else. But even though Sam knows it's stupid – he did get out of the crazy overcompensating family for a little while, learned quickly at Stanford that he was going to need help, and to ask for it right away. He used to know how to do that. But he's forgotten, like he's forgotten most of that life.

The thing is, in the mess after Amara and God and Lucifer, when Dean's back from the dead and Sam's been tortured again, and all these new shitty memories of Lucifer are floating around his brain, including – _especially_ – Lucifer in Cas, he just needs to put them away for a while. He can't sleep, and he really was just planning on asking for Cas to give him a two-finger knockout, but then Cas shows up and there's the moment of panic. _Is it Lucifer?_ No, no, no, he realizes, it's Cas. Just Cas. Lucifer's in the wind, got a new vessel, fucking Vince Vincente, it's just Cas, Cas's regular vessel, Jimmy's blue eyes roaming Sam's face with concern. 

Sam just breathes.

Cas keeps his hands where Sam can see them.

And eventually Sam sits down on the bed, slowly unfurling back onto the pillows, offering up his vital soft spots, allowing himself to be vulnerable, to be safe, with Cas. 

And Cas doesn't knock him out, Cas just sits next to him on the bed, an attentive vigil, watching Sam as he lets go, as he drifts into sleep, and when the nightmares come, Cas gently puts his fingers to Sam's forehead and tells them to fuck off.


	2. That aha! moment

If anyone is going to have an aha! moment, it's got to be Cas, right? Like, really, you just know Sam has spent hours thinking through things and testing his hypotheses inside the confines of his brain, and then sort of subtly seeing if he can hint at Cas that hey, we should be a thing, don't you think we should be a thing? 

You know, Sam touches Cas waaaaay more often than anyone else these days. And what if those touches started to linger a little? Sam musses Cas's hair, tries to get it to stick up like it used to, maybe, or he doesn't just squeeze Cas's shoulder as he walks by, but stays behind him, lets his hand rest there while they talk about a possible hunt. Or maybe he decides he needs to straighten Cas's tie before they go into the police station as FBI – and he can't help drawing it out, fussing over Cas's tie and tucking down the corners of his shirt, straightening his jacket and then his trench coat, all the while watching his own hands because if he looks up at Cas he'll give it away, and Castiel does the same, watches Sam's hands with interest, because they're Sam's hands, and they're always doing things, and touching things and oh, _ohhh_ , they're touching him, now, _him_ , and does that mean Sam wants to do things to Castiel with his hands? Other things, more intimate things? 

And when Castiel finally looks up at Sam, feeling the heartbeat of his human vessel like he never has before, galloping like it might burst right out of his chest, he sees Sam quickly glance up, checking in on him like he might bolt, like he is the colt his heart seems to think he is, and it's not quite a moment of surprise so much as a moment of stillness – of _rightness_ – as Sam's hands come to rest on his neck and Castiel understands.


	3. Outside POV (Jody)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you’re have an excellent week so far, my dear Sastiel anon! :D I thought about doing Dean for this (seems the obvious choice for Sastiel, doesn’t it?) but all my ideas were angsty so I went with Jody instead, because I love her and I know she just wants Sam to be happy.

Jody hears about Cas well before she meets him. Before she even knows about angels, for that matter. It starts with Dean, casually mentioning "a friend named Cas" and funny stories about how awkward he is. Jody can't quite see it, the boys hanging around with that kind of interpersonally dimwitted type of guy, but you know, their lives are pretty weird. And then somewhere in there she hears the name "Castiel" and puts two and two together and gets thirty-eight. 

Sam doesn't really talk about Cas – not until much later, and not with the same kind of tone. Dean often talks about him like a pet, something that is obviously well-loved but walks the line between amusing and burdensome, based on his most recent antics, but Sam talks about him like a person, an equal. Sam talks about him like someone he cares about. Almost in the same way he talks about Dean, but… not quite. There is something off about it that Jody never quite gets until she finally meets Cas and is in a room with the three of them together. 

She's not entirely sure that Dean knows, or that Dean would approve – he can be annoyingly ridiculous that way sometimes – but she's sure she's right when she sees the soft, fond smile Sam has for the angel, and the way Castiel will look to Sam to see if his attempts at human interaction have gone right. It's touch and go with Dean, because he's been getting harder lately, but other than that, Cas does pretty well. He's kind and funny – sometimes even intentionally – and he clearly loves the Winchesters, so that puts him in the "good" column in her books. And then there's the way he will sometimes put a hand on Sam and Sam will visibly relax and Jody thinks he's beyond good for Sam, he's _necessary_ for Sam.

So the first time she gets invited to the bunker (and seriously, they've been living in this place for _years_ and didn't invite her over? they are going to pay for a long time for that one), she's not surprised to catch Cas sneaking out of Sam's room in the middle of the night, a fond look into the room before he closes the door quietly. He stands there in his boxers and unbuttoned shirt, his pants, trench coat, and tie over one arm, and stares at Jody with surprise in his eyes. The next minute he's fully dressed and Jody cannot quite understand why he hadn't done that in the first place, but at least he's fully clothed, so that's okay, and then he's apologizing and asking her not to mention it to Dean and she's just sort of nodding because it's not her place, but she thinks Dean would understand.

She totally brings it up to Dean over coffee the next morning, though, because it's dumb and she hates it when the boys are keeping things from each other. He laughs, delighted in a way she doesn't get to see often, and says, "I let them keep their secrets. They like the cloak and dagger shit." He pours some heavy cream in his coffee – ugh, that boy's going to die of a heart attack – and says, "But I'll wait. They're happy. They can tell me when they're ready."


	4. Valentine's Day

So I know that Sastiel is made of fluff (and I promise you will get some before this is over) but honestly, I don't see Sam buying in to Valentine's day. At least, not as more than Dean's "unattached drifter Christmas." I think he probably thinks of it as phony and a little insulting, that he should do something ~romantic because it's mid-February and stores would like him to spend a lot of money on shit to prove he's a good boyfriend. 

No, I think it's likely that Sam is a good boyfriend all year long, and for special occasions (not Valentine's, no, but anniversaries, maybe – and not the big ones, like first date, but ones like, "the first time Cas brought home a kitten" or "when Claire found out and gave us her blessing"), he does something particularly thoughtful, like record a short video of Castiel from a distance while he's lost in thought, whispering into his phone all the sappy, romantic thoughts he's having about Cas at that moment. Or maybe he writes out Cas's full name in beautiful script and has it tattooed on the back of his neck, under his hair, where Cas is the only one that ever really gets to see it.

Cas, on the other hand, I think he loves Valentine's day. All the crap candy and flowers and teddy bears and even jewelry (he gets Sam a pendant the first year, which Sam wears dutifully, though it's not really his style at all – until it gets accidentally "lost" when Cas chucks it because he can tell Sam doesn't like it). Cas loves it, and would love to buy it all and stuff Sam's room full of it… but then he'd have to throw it all away because Sam doesn't eat candy and doesn't really like stuffed animals and the flowers are dead, which makes him sad. So he doesn't really celebrate Valentine's day so much as pine for all the stupid little pieces of it.

But Sam is thoughtful about that, too, and takes Cas binge-shopping the day _after_ Valentine's when everything's 75% off and they buy more candy than any ten people can eat, and a few sappy romantic comedies, and a handful of stuffed animals and Sam sets Cas up on the couch with the stuffed animals and rom coms while he makes up a smorgasbord of every kind of Valentine's candy known to man and they eat candy until they're sick and nap on the couch together under the pile of stuffed animals while Love, Actually plays in the background.


	5. Alternate Universe - next door neighbors/growing up together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good evening, you lovely Sastiel person, you! I hope you are having an excellent week so far, and I hope it continues in a delightfully Sastiel manner. I, unfortunately, have come down with a bug, which is why this is a wee bit later than normal. Also, it’s huge. Because I have this problem with elephantiasis of the story, sorry about that. D:

You mentioned in your requests that you like the friends to lovers trope, and honestly I love it too! AUs are normally a little tough for me in Supernatural, but I think I can spin a little something where Cas is just the next door neighbor, middle child of what seems like a hundred, fascinated by the two boys next door and their surly father. And they become friends, because Cas is roughly Dean's age and they end up going to school together, and hanging out all the time, sometimes even letting little Sammy hang out with them, because Cas likes him – he's smart for his age and oddly serious, but with an easy laugh that brings out his dimples. And no one can get him to laugh more than his brother Dean, and Cas can see how close they are, so it seems silly to play all stupid like it bothers Dean that Sam hangs around.

And they grow up together, go through all their various awkward stages together. Sam and Dean clean Cas up after he gets beaten up at school for being a fag (and they and two of Cas's brothers return the favor to the asshole who did it) and Sam asks Cas to homecoming to come out, and Cas of course says yes, though he doesn't think anything of it at the time – he's the only out guy Sam knows, so of course Sam's going to ask him.

Dean goes to the local college – for music, of all things – and Cas goes with him, thinking he's going to med school, maybe, and starting with a bio major. He eventually realizes he doesn't really want to be a doctor (after his second volunteer summer in a hospital shows him that people are actually assholes most of the time) and decides on veterinary school instead.

They see Sam most weekends, and sometimes he and a group of kids from the swim team come into the diner Cas studies at, and Sam will join him at his table, ask him how he's doing, what his plans are. Sam is the first person he tells about veterinary school. Sam is the first person he tells about going to California. He can't tell Dean; he knows Dean will just give him the hurt eyes and stop talking to him for a while until he processes, and then mope around for weeks. Even though Dean practices all night, every night – after dinner until they kick him out of the practice rooms at midnight – and Cas only really gets to see him at breakfast and on weekends.

Sam surprises him again, asking him to prom, and Cas agrees, because he's had a few flings at college and one short-lived boyfriend, but they're in Kansas and it's dangerous to pick the wrong guy, and he likes that Sam feels like Cas is a safe choice. And _that_ is why he is moving to California with absolutely no regrets. Well, maybe one.

Before prom, though, they decide to do spring break in California, the three of them piling into Dean's car and singing along to Dean's terrible tape collection as they drive away from middle America, and Cas's heart gets lighter with every mile. He has his acceptance letter from UC Davis – this is where he's going to live, probably for the rest of his life – and the excitement about seeing his new home grows in proportion with the dread that he's going to have to tell Dean, and he doesn't want to deal with their friendship breaking down now, right before he moves cross-country.

Somewhere in Arizona, the car gets quiet as the three of them sink into their own thoughts, and Cas knows this is it – he has to tell Dean before they get to California because he'll need the week to come back around to being Cas's best friend again, and better to get it out of the way now. "Dean?"

Dean looks across the front seat at him and smiles. "Yeah?"

"I'm moving to California next year to go to school."

Once it's out there, he holds his breath. It was easy, saying the words. It was impossible to look at Dean, though, at least until he hears the peal of laughter. "No shit," Dean says, reaching over the seat and shaking Sam until he wakes up from his nap.

"What?" Sam says, with his adorably grumpy face. Cas can feel hope rising in his chest, and it rests on Sam.

"Cas is going to school in California next year."

Sam's face morphs from annoyed to amused, complete with huge grin and dimples, and while that's definitely reassuring, there's a hell of a lot of incomplete thoughts rolling around in his brain, making him confused.

"I told Dean," Sam says. "You didn't say it was a secret."

Cas can feel his eyes open wide. _Of course_ it was a secret! He shouldn't have to tell Sam that! But… if Dean knows already, and Dean is smiling…

"We're here for Dean's audition to get into the San Francisco Conservatory, dum-dum," Sam says. "Though I'm sure he'll get in, and get that TA position."

Dean actually blushes a little. Cas has always loved that about him, that he gets embarrassed to know his friends and family support him. "And we're taking a tour of Sammy's college," Dean adds. "He got in to Stanford. Pre-law!"

And now Sam ducks his head at Dean's crowing, and Cas is just sort of stunned; how did he fall in with these two? They're just too good for him. "And we thought we might take a look at your school, too," Sam says. "And figure out how far apart they all are."

Cas is humbled by the Winchesters and their absolute willingness to leap without looking, to follow him to the ends of the earth – or the edge of America, anyway. And they spend a week working out the BART and listening Dean practicing to get his nerves under control, and at the end of it, Cas feels a lot more settled about where his life is going.

But then they have to go back to Kansas, and Cas has to scrunch himself up into his little box for a few more months. They already have plans to move to California right after Sam's graduation, but the weeks march slowly.

Cas and Dean's graduation is the same weekend as Sam's prom, which Cas had not put together, so it's a huge whirlwind, doing the ceremony and sitting in the sun, getting their diplomas, and then hurrying to the tux rental place and getting suited up. 

Taking the picture is weird – there are standard guy/girl poses, but that doesn't really work for two guys, even though Sam is huge now, and three or four inches taller than Cas. He's not big into holding hands, either, especially since this isn't really a date, and eventually they go with one of the standard poses as a joke. Cas stands in front of Sam and Sam puts his arms around Cas's waist. Just because he likes to hold his new height over them all, Sam also rests his chin on Cas's head. Cas doesn't see the pictures until much later – when Sam puts them up in his apartment with Dean – but they're kind of adorable.

Grad school goes by quicker than Cas could've imagined – mostly studying and working as a tech at a local veterinary clinic, but also driving in to the city to visit Sam and Dean, to see Dean's recitals, to go dancing in the San Francisco clubs with Sam. 

They take trips together when they can line up their vacation time. Sam likes to plan extravagant ones out of the country (and thankfully is diligent about orchestrating the whole thing, including their passport applications), which Cas doesn't complain about. He usually tries to get them to go skiing with him, which sometimes works, and often means they stay in the hottub while he goes out and skis. Sam does eventually take up snowboarding, which is probably more than Cas could've ever expected.

Dean gets serious with a woman at some point, and Sam calls Cas to moan about it, how he can't study because Dean's either practicing or having sex, like _all the time_. Cas tells him to suck it up. He had to deal with it for four years; Sam can take his turn like a big boy.

Cas doesn't have time for boyfriends, though he has a few one-night stands here or there, so it's nice to hear that Sam finds a few in his time at Stanford. They're short-lived, usually – Sam is an exceptionally serious student – but Cas does get to at least meet one of them, Brady. He seems like a bit of a mess, if Cas is honest, but it doesn't last long – he doesn't know what happened, but Dean apparently threatened Brady and Brady left Sam alone, avoiding him even on campus. He gets heated phone calls from both the brothers then, and if he's honest, he's with Dean on this one. Brady was distracting Sam from school, and on his way to flunking out. There was no way Dean was going to let him get in the way of Sam's future as a lawyer. Sam was always too kind-hearted for his own good.

They all graduate, and all with some kind of honors – and Dean's had something to do with a project where he had to work with the composer on something-or-other, which seems a hell of a lot more complicated than getting good grades the way Cas and Sam did – but at least they luck out and only have one graduation ceremony per weekend.

It's not even a question that he and Dean moving somewhere together, and surprisingly, it's not even a question of where. Cas can work as a vet anywhere, but Dean's been flying down to L.A. more and more the last few years to work as a studio musician, so it only makes sense, though Sam is stuck at Stanford for law school. 

He asks Cas up a couple of times, separate from Dean, though they both go visit him at least once a month – he's gotten a little melancholy, being by himself – and one of the times is Brady's wedding – to a lovely, old-money sort of guy. 

Cas goes because it charms him, being Sam's go-to date for important events. He likes that Sam trusts him with the special occasions. And when Brady's husband calls them a cute couple and Sam doesn't correct him, well. It'd just be too awkward, wouldn't it? And Cas is sure half the reason he's along for the ride is to make Brady jealous – or at least prove that Sam isn't so undesirable that he can't get a date to an ex's wedding.

That makes Cas angry, though, because Sam _is_ desirable, and of course he could get a real date if he wanted to, so he's worked himself up to a froth by the time dinner starts, and he wants to make a show of just how desirable Sam is, but it's dinner, and there is nothing to be done about it. He pays attention to Sam though, makes sure he's not sad or upset, tries to be attentive and listen to his stories, and answer with witty and polite stories about what work is like, or life as Dean Winchester's roommate, or just stories about L.A., which are a thing of their own.

Once the dinner has been cleared away and they've shifted the tables out of the way for the dance floor, Cas asks for Sam's hand, and takes him out for the first dance. It's a small classical orchestra, of course, and Cas doesn't know a damn thing about how to waltz, but it turns out that Sam does, and Sam knows how to lead, too. And Cas ends up swept around the dance floor in an extremely surprising and vaguely uncomfortable turning of the tables. 

He's pleased to see a lot of the people in the crowd staring at the pair of them. Almost as many as the ones staring at the grooms, and Cas is happy to do this for Sam, to show him off. He's wonderful and deserves all the wonderful things in life, and if Cas can do that for Sam, then he's happy to. 

After the second dance, Cas begs off to get them drinks, hoping that leaving Sam alone will give someone else the courage to ask him to dance, and maybe Sam will find that special someone he thought Brady might have been. 

He gets a glass of champagne, staying back at the bar, watching Sam from a distance, several men crowded around now that Cas is gone, all of them seemingly vying for his attention. He can see Sam's polite smile, but that's not right – he should be thrilled – and after a little while, the smile goes away and Sam is looking around, like he's…

…looking for Cas. 

Suddenly their history slots together into something different; he had known Sam had a crush on him in high school, but that was a high school thing. There weren't that many gay guys around, Cas never assumed…

But then college, and now… Sam is a grown man, one who knows his own mind, and who knows both Cas's highest and lowest points, all his flaws, and… Damn. Cas has never really considered that Sam might be interested in him. He never… they… it has always been polite and friendly and smiley and warm and never that insane sort of feeling Dean talked about with his new girlfriend of the month, that sharp sort of relationship that Cas always wondered how Dean knew whether it was going to make him high or cut him to ribbons – and it always seemed like both, in the end, and maybe that's what Cas was hiding from.

But Sam, he's not like that. There's nothing sharp – at least not with Cas – there's only softness and warmth and love, and holy shit, how long has Cas even been in love with Sam? 

And there it is – there's the heart beating out of control, the attack of uncertainty and possible loss, fear eating through the solid knowledge that in no world would Sam hurt him on purpose. 

"Cas?"

Cas looks up to see Sam standing next to him at the bar, looking down at his singular drink and raising an eyebrow. "Thought you were getting drinks for both of us," he teases, and Cas can feel himself wanting to run away, there is no way that this can end well, he is not deserving –

"Cas?" Sam asks again, this time laced with concern, and Cas shakes his head, backing away, he needs air, he can't breathe, and Sam approaches him with hands raised and says, "It's okay, what do you need?" and Cas nearly has a breakdown because how can he even answer that? What if he's wrong, what if Sam is just his friend and now he's seen something else and he will never have it?

"Cas," Sam says, this time with finality, and Cas puts down his stupid glass of champagne before his shaking hands give him away. "What's going on? How can I help?"

And Cas takes a deep breath and drums up his courage, because if this is what he thinks it is, he is not wasting one more minute. And if it isn't what he thinks it is, he's not wasting a single minute trying to stuff all this junk back into the pressure-sealed box labeled "Sam Winchester" where it all lived just fine before now.

"I think I'm in love with you," Cas says, not daring to look up at Sam until the words are out, because if Sam's first reaction is laughter, Cas's heart will shatter and he doesn't want to have to pick up those pieces in the middle of Sam's ex's wedding reception.

Sam's not laughing, though, or even smiling, which, Cas had secretly thought, he would be, if that declaration was a good thing. So shit, he's fucked things up, and now he needs to start picking up those huge feelings and start stuffing them back into that tiny space where he is certain they don't fit any more, but Sam grabs his arms and shakes him, just a little. It short-circuits Cas's brain just enough to look up at Sam again, and, oh, there. There is the smile, though there's some surprise still locked in his features, and maybe a little amazement. 

"I love you too, Cas," Sam says. "I never really thought…" Sam smiles and looks down.

Cas knows what that is, he's seen that on Sam too many times to let it pass. How could he think he is any way unworthy of every fine thing life has to offer? "I didn't know," Cas says. "I never… I couldn't see."

"I was too scared," Sam says, and that's honestly more confessions that Cas has given or heard in his entire life, and it's about ten too many. 

Cas throws himself forward, absolutely certain Sam will catch him, and tilts his face up to Sam's, waiting just long enough for Sam to smile down at him and the pack of gay men that gathered as witness to their strange declaration of love to start whistling and hollering before he kisses Sam with everything he has.


	6. Aaaaaaaaaaaaangst

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, there was just so so so much stuffed into your prompt (and how could I NOT write "washing the blood off each other" for angst day, I ask you), I couldn't help but go long (sorry – I'm really bad at this whole "keeping it short" thing). I just haaaaad to give you a five times, so: **Five Times Sam and Cas Washed the Blood Off.**

1\. The first time it happened was probably after Cas was human for that brief stint. Because before that, he'd just healed them, you know? No muss, no fuss, just clean it all up, get it out of there, go back to all is right with the world. And it's not that Sam couldn't appreciate that, but it's such an emotional downshifting, from hyper-aware of his body, his wounds, the pains and aches and smell of blood, yeah, he's used to it, it doesn't make him nauseous anymore, but he still hates it. And then… nothing. Normalcy. Except he'd just felt it, and he can still kind of feel it, lingering there, like a phantom limb. He knows it's not real but his mind can't adjust in an instant just because Cas can heal his physical body in the blink of an eye.

So, yeah, the first time it happens is after Cas has been human, and after he realizes that there is a rhythm to being human, to the way the mind and the body work together, not always in synch. He had been used to that as an angel. The vessel was not his body. It was just a loose outer covering, like a trench coat. But it's not like that when you're a human. There's a strong connection between the body and the mind and the soul. It can be broken, and in Sam it is severely damaged, but it's this new understanding of the strength of that connection that makes Cas take a washcloth to Sam's face instead of two fingers, wiping at the blood streaming from his split lip, softly, because pain was an unwelcome sensation to him as well, and he doesn't want to cause Sam any pain if he can help it.

And Sam doesn't really understand – it's been years, and he's used to Cas healing him in an instant, and the strange display of care confuses the hell out of him, but he can't turn away – to be touched with kindness is too rare for him to pass it up. 

Cas is covered in blood, too – Sam's, actually – and he knows Cas doesn't need to be cleaned up, but he takes the washcloth out of Cas's hands and does it anyway, because the only thing better than being treated kindly is being allowed to return the favor. And when Cas does his signature move, the confusion clear in that "what are you doing?" head tilt, Sam leans in and kisses him, split lip and all.

2\. When Sam finally gets back to the bunker after _not_ killing Crowley (damn it, Rowena); when he first looks down at the mess in the library, he mourns the time he's going to have to spend cleaning things up. There's a dead kid, that can't be good, and as much as Sam feels sorry for the poor kid, he feels more sorry for himself, because he knows this means Dean is almost gone.

Then he rounds the corner and sees Cas and he knows. Dean's not _almost_ gone, Dean is _gone_. And while that makes up the entirety of the background of his mental landscape, the foreground is taken up with Cas. Beaten, bloody Cas, who had to have stayed where he was because he is just as stuck as Sam is, just as lost at sea, trying to help a Dean that doesn't want their help.

So he pulls off his jacket and his flannel shirt, using it to clean the blood from Cas's face, making gentle soothing nonsense sounds, trying to bring Cas back gently, trying to give him something to hang on to. Cas isn't completely comatose. He's limp and yielding; he lets Sam shift him around and clean him up, and eventually, when Sam says, "this'll be easier in the shower, Cas," Castiel thinks, water, yes. Water is cleansing, water washes things away, water could wash him away, or at least drown out the way his failures are screaming in his brain like a siren. Even for his own good, he was unable to hurt Dean, and now any more innocent lives Dean takes will be on Castiel's head.

"C'mon, Cas, work with me here," Sam says, and Castiel does, Castiel works with Sam. He lets Sam lead him, he lets Sam strip him, he lets Sam position him under the spray of the shower. He lets Sam gently soap his skin and shampoo his hair and place small kisses on Castiel's face, his eyelids and nose and eventually his mouth and Castiel works with that, too.

3\. Sam knows its bad. He's got a solid sense for mortal wounds. Knows them when he sees them, but knows them even better when he feels them. Gut wounds are tricky. Sometimes you get lucky and it's no big deal – but normally, it's a really big deal, and never in a good way. There's bad, really bad, and fuck, can you see a reaper? This is somewhere between those last two. 

He's lived through that before – being gut shot, suffocated by a werewolf, and then having to save his brother anyway is right up there – but Cas is close, so he's not going to push it this time. He's going to lie here quietly and bleed for a while, hold his guts together as best he can, hoping for unconsciousness.

He's out when Cas heals him, and he's thankful for that – the jarring mental disconnect when his body gets healed quickly is never pleasant – but Cas doesn't automatically clean him up anymore. He's maybe taken care of some of the liquid, though. Cleaning up after Sam may be Cas's new thing (and okay, so maybe it's Sam's too), but getting a quart of blood all over the inside of Cas's truck is out of the question.

Still, Sam's still plenty bloody when they get back to the motel, no Dean in sight – Cas mumbles something about him going out to the bar – and Cas takes him into the bathroom, peeling the slightly-tacky clothes off and plopping them into the tub under the running water that's starting to steam up the room. Next comes the washcloth and warm water – Cas is diligent about not letting it get cold against his skin – and Cas's visual inspection, checking the skin under the blood like he doesn't know it's going to be perfectly fine. Sam doesn't begrudge him, though sometimes he gets impatient and grabs Cas, pulling him into the shower with him, standing under the warm spray and letting his kisses tell Cas what he needs to know.

4\. At some point, Dean asks Cas about not just cleaning himself up with a little mojo, and Cas shrugs and gives him some kind of runaround about not wasting his grace since he's still not fully recovered. He still heals Dean every time he has a hangnail, though, so that's got to be a bullshit answer. Later, Dean finds out about Cas and Sam. Not even really sure how; Sam might've told him. He might've walked in on them at some point. Cas might've accidentally-purposely let it slip. Whatever it is, he knows, and when Cas nearly dies because the angel lance is _fucked up_ , Dean flips out. And flips out again when Cas says, for the second time in under a month, that he loves them. It's starting to really freak him out, all this love talk.

But he knows when they limp back to the motel that Sam and Cas are going to need some time, so he grabs a room for himself, gets a roll of quarters, and settles in with the Magic Fingers for the rest of the night.

Sam doesn't react to dying confessions well. He hates it, in fact, though he's probably more prone to do it than any of them. He often feels like he has so much to say to Dean, and he just _can't_ most of the time. He's never felt like he needed to tell Cas anything, though, because he tells Cas things. Not usually with words; he's just as bad with words as any of the Winchesters, but he's good with his hands, and Cas lets him use his hands after things get hairy, like they did here. 

Cas lets him do all the things that he needs to do to satisfy himself that Cas is okay. Cas always stays still and responds to Sam's little nudges and hmms with a sort of amused obedience, which Sam appreciates. In reality, Castiel is simply pleased to be touched by Sam, to be thoroughly examined and not to be found faulty. He had once had the arrogance of all the angels, thinking he was, as the saying goes, at the top of the food chain. The more he is brought low, the more he realizes that not only are angels far from invincible, he is the least of angels, and probably the most fallible. 

But Sam finds him worthy. Sam's hands gently wash the blood from his skin, sometimes several times over, mapping it as though he is trying to memorize it. When Castiel feels most low, when he feels like he is of no use or worse, a burden, Sam's hands chase the blood from his skin, wiping him clean and making him whole. 

5\. Sam's not terribly kinky. Too much of that stuff resembles the bad parts of the job, things that have been done to him forcibly, without his permission, and then again things he's had to do to people (or monsters, or monstery people) because he needed something from them. So no, whips and chains and tying up or down, pain, none of that really hits his buttons. 

And no, Cas covered in blood doesn't push his buttons either, but it reminds him of Cas being a badass, fighting his way through a room of demons because Sam and Dean were being held captive and tortured. Dean was way worse off; Sam hardly liked torture, but he knew how to react to make them think they were doing more damage than they were. He swallowed his pride, knowing Castiel was going to come for them, and he needed to be able to fight when it happened – or at least be conscious, maybe to help. Dean was a stupid stubborn bastard that didn't show anything until he was too hurt to keep it in. Every time he made a sound, Sam knew it was because it'd been ripped out of him with more pain than most humans could comprehend.

So maybe Sam had gone a little crazy too, when Cas had cut him loose. Maybe he'd killed a few of the nastier demons instead of performing the exorcism he knew he should. Most of these demons had probably killed their hosts anyway, he reasoned. 

But then a mass exorcism, said quickly so none of them could smoke out, they could look after Dean, who was not looking too good. One press of Cas's two fingers and that was rectified. He was still out of it, because torture gets inside your head and it'd taken a while for Cas to get to them. 

And now they are in the motel, Dean fast asleep on the bed, Sam and Cas crunched together in the tiny bathroom, and Sam being kind of turned on by washing the blood off his angel. 

"You were badass in there," he says, and adds something he should've said much sooner in this process. "Thanks for the rescue."

"Do not thank me," Castiel says, because he cannot bear it to see Sam injured, to see his life's blood outside his body, where it doesn't belong. There's a tenderness to the way they clean each other. A symbolism beyond the obvious desire to wash off the memories and pain of what happened. 

"I'll thank you if I want to," Sam says, because he is contrary like that sometimes; Castiel doesn't mind it in Sam the way he does in Dean, and it is probably no more than an echo of Dean's own contrary nature, but he takes the washcloth to Sam's face so he can kiss the grumpy frown off of it. 

"Of course you will," Castiel says, because it's true – Sam will do whatever he pleases, and that is always both satisfying and frustrating in roughly equal measure.

"It's just sexy, watching you be a badass," Sam says, and immediately turns pink because it's not the sort of thing he vocalizes, which just goes to show he was more affected by the torture than he thinks. 

"Thank you," Castiel says, taking the washcloth over the rest of Sam's face. "It is scary to watch you be tortured."

That was perhaps cheating – Sam looks contrite, and Castiel knows he has likely quashed the possibility of sex, which can sometimes be very life-affirming for Sam. But Castiel has his own emotional baggage to deal with, and seeing Sam tied up and injured at the hands of enemies will always be more than he can bear, and the afterimage burns itself into his consciousness and will appear at the most awkward times. Sometimes he needs the cleansing ritual not just to assure himself that Sam Winchester is whole, but to let the fear and worry drain out of himself.

"I'm fine," Sam says, turning the tables on Castiel, taking away Castiel's washcloth and attacking Castiel's face with one of his own. "You've made sure of that. And I know you'll check, just to be sure, but I will still think you're a sexy badass, even when you're not covered in blood anymore. So maybe just take the compliment, angel."

Cas rolls his eyes, and Sam can't help a smile, but he gets it under control before Cas looks back at him. He must not have gotten all of it, though, because Cas raises an eyebrow and says, "I said thank you. And abusing me with terrycloth doesn't seem particularly complimentary."

"Shut up," Sam says, crowding into Cas to get him off-balance and pushing him into the shower, "and get naked."


	7. Fluff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's our last day, my lovely Sastiel partner-in-crime! And I promised you fluff at some point, and that is the prompt today and can't you just see a tug-of-war about what kind of pet they're going to get?

Dean's not exactly sure how it happened, but he seems to be the decision-maker about all things bunker. He doesn't mind, really. It's kind of nice to say with absolute authority that absolutely no art that isn't already there gets hung (because Sam's taste is just so weird and honestly, Dean kind of likes the feel of the bunker as it is), and how, exactly, the spices get ordered in the kitchen, but man, the best thing ever is the way he gets back at Sam and Cas for not telling him they're together.

Any idiot with eyes could see that Sam's been googly-eyed over the angel since day one. Dean honestly hadn't thought Sam swung that way, but when he considers that Cas isn't human, it makes more sense.

Cas, on the other hand, didn't seem to swing any way, at least not until he'd become human. And once he had, he seemed to look at Sam differently, and Dean knew it'd only be a matter of time before the two idiots figured things out.

And they did, of course they did, but for some reason they seem to think that Dean won't understand, or that he won't like it, or that he didn't see it coming from a hundred miles away, so there's all kinds of sudden flurries of motion when he comes into a room, where they're standing far apart and both doing things. Vehemently. 

And Dean's fine with that too – if they need to take their time telling him, fine, he'll give them their space. He'll pretend he doesn't see the googly eyes, or the way they hold hands under the table at the diner. He'll be sure to give them time alone when they're on the road and all in each other's pockets and it's tough for them to get the kind of quality snuggling time they get in the screening room that they think he doesn't know about.

But really, enough's enough. It's been months. It might be coming up on a year, actually – it's not like he knows the exact date of when things happened, it was a gradual change and it took a while to figure out – and he just doesn't want to have to tiptoe around anymore, worried that he might be interrupting something.

So he announces that they are going to get a pet. One. And the person that convinces him what kind of pet to get wins.

Personally, he'd like a bunny. They're cute and quiet and not-too-demanding. But this isn't about him, and if he's honest, once they have one pet, he pretty much figures they'll be running a damn zoo within a year. That's why this is the only chance he's going to have at this.

Cas tries to convince him that a cat is the right fit for the bunker. He sends Dean every cat meme in existence (and good lord they are legion) as well as twenty or so cute kitten pictures every. single. day.

And Sam does the same with puppies, alllll the cute puppy pictures, and points out that some dogs are smart, and some dogs are hunters, and they could be useful and they could bring it on the road.

Dean lets this go on for over a week – once they get into bribery, he nearly gets sick from the amount of food and alcohol they bring him – and revels in their not-so-friendly competition. 

It isn't until he hears them fighting about it, heatedly, without an ounce of irony, that he realizes he might have overstepped his bounds. So he backs away from the screening room and heads out of the bunker on a mission.

"A dog is more useful to us," Sam says for the millionth time. "We can get one that tracks, or a guard dog, so we have someone that always has our back."

"I always have your back, Sam," Cas says, and Sam throws his hands up. That's not what he meant, and Cas is just twisting his words now. 

"Cas, you know that's not –"

"I don't know anything anymore, Sam, except that you don't seem to understand that the bunker needs to have a cat. There is no animal that belongs here more than a cat. And they are independent and can care for themselves while we are away."

"But only if they can go outside," Sam argues, "and that means a weakness in the defenses."

"Hey fellas," Dean says, coming in with a bulge in his jacket. Sam and Cas both turn to him, irritation on their faces. 

"First person to tell me when your anniversary is gets their present."

The look of surprise on their faces is priceless. If Dean had another hand, he would've snapped a picture. "Next week Thursday," Cas answers at the same time Sam says, "March 23rd," and Dean smiles beatifically and brings the squirmy animals out of his jacket, handing the kitten to Sam and the puppy to Cas. There's only a moment of annoyance at the obvious mix-up as they both get immediately preoccupied with the baby animal in their hands.

"Good," he says. "Now kiss and make up."

The next time Dean sneaks into the screening room, Sam and Cas are cuddled up on the couch, the puppy and the kitten curled together between them, and all is right in Dean's world.


End file.
